I am in the Internet business as a Senior Project Manager.
I use this blog to share management and technical tips, to help other increase their competencies, succeed in job interviews, or at least read something interesting.

Friday

Have you sent a job application for a PM role? The interview questions asked by Google, LinkedIn, and Facebook recruiters do not really matter: what matters is the knowledge you need to give the right answers to any question! So, stop reading hundredth of interview questions: it is a waste of time. Rather learn the key concepts (processes, frameworks, methodologies, templates, steps, and tools) described in this serie of posts and you will be in a much better position the day of the interview. In particular, many questions are about the documents you would produce as a project manager, or you have used in your past projects.

The documents that project managers use depend on the project phases. If you do not remember the 5 phases of project management, jump to the end of this post, where I remind them. Otherwise, you can continue reading this post to directly learn what the top 4 project management documents contain.

Top 4 Project Documents produced by good project managers

Two kinds of documents matter for every phase of a project: the required (1) input and (2) output documents for that phase of the project. The input documents are demanded by the project manager but she usually does not write them: they come from the customer or other project stakeholders. The size of all these documents is closely related to the size of the project. Use common sense: if your project is small, do not fill hundredth of pages...

The top 4 project management documents are the following:

Project charter:

It is the agreement between the people who will do the work and the one who request the work. It gives the Project Manager a clear mandate to plan and execute the project.

Either the project manager writes this document and validates it with the project sponsor, or (better) the sponsor writes the project charter while involving the project manager.

A good project charter usually includes:

The rationale for the project - what business need does the project answer

The project (SMART) objectives and success criteria as well as the process to validate the success or not of the project (e.g., restitution to sponsors)

The clear delimitation of project scope

A summary of the main aspects of the project: budget, timeline, leader, shareholders,

Accepted deliverables

The accepted deliverables are the result that the project provides to (internal or external) customer.

Archived project documents

The archived project documents are the memory of the project. In practice, they are often neglected and never reopened by anyone. They can nevertheless prove useful: as templates, as proof of execution in case of audit, and as a source for lessons learnt.

To conclude this post, please be aware that I did not detail all project documents but stressed only the most important ones. If you want more details, I advise you to read the PMBOK

Other project documents

Additional less important documents can be filled for large projects. They include: